friend

When you fumbled and cannibalized your mother’s expired prescription, you lived, though it still feels like you died to me; it rings inside my walls, buzzes like a trapped bee who might as well be dead to the colony. When you open your mouth it is like buzzing, like moths ate away your teeth so you can only hum to me, like a montage, a collage of childhood and your dad’s car on fire, and when we still hummed the melodic idioms from the fifth-grade dance, and you said your first curse word, and the fire department was late, down the road. Lots of people face death and live, but some of them die, despite still droning in their bodies, their veins still full, their bones still unchanged. Still, their teeth are gone, and they can only hhuumm so they might as well be gone, like hair is gone; with time, it falls out one by one, two by two, two by two, two by two, two by two, two by two, two by two, two by two, two by two, two by one. I see evidence of life, and like a scientist, an anthropologist, I stagger when I see an old photograph of you; you’re trapped in the picture, in the wall, buzzing, toothful, and I look for somewhere to hit play; I want you to speak, because you look alive, and you were. We all expire, power-lines wear away with each bird that rests; a doe will mourn over her fawn in the field by my house; the medication was expired behind the burst toothpaste tube; it was expired when you counted the seconds like pills and took it all, and the doe in my yard left its baby to the vultures, circle, circle, circle, circle, circle. I didn’t see God when I jumped off the swing-set after you, like you said you did. Is anyone else home, up there, with the birds? Is it selfish to say you died, even though you still breathe? Asking this question at the beginning might have redeemed me sooner, bared my empathy like bloody teeth; look at me, look at me, look at me, look at us, always so passionate about fiction, and slow  

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